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Managing Up: Or How Going Vertical Can Help Your Business

If you had a job where you had to report to -- gasp, a boss -- you would manage that relationship, doing what we in corporate America call “managing up.” You’d make sure that you knew what your boss thought and what affected her decision to give you a raise. You’d also make sure you could do everything within your power to make your boss’ job easier so that you were considered a valuable asset to both your manager and the company. As an MSP, you must manage up, too. Here's how.

From education to retail, manufacturing to healthcare, services to government, you deal with customers across the SMB market space and you’ve got to stay on top of their unique business challenges, as well as the latest IT information and equipment. By knowing their businesses and pain points, you become a valued partner and not just another service provider.

PCs with Intel vPro technology can help make your job of managing up a little easier. I don’t have space here to cover all the vertical markets, but consider these three:

In any service business, access to information determines an organization’s ability to service customers, respond to opportunities, and adapt to changes quickly. PC downtime means disrupted access to information, every time. With PCs based on Intel vPro technology, downtime can be reduced by up to 83%.

Gary Bazelon, president of Trek Freight Services concurs. He says: “Today, the PC has become even more important than the phone. Everyone—from accounting to dispatch to sales—uses their PC all day to get information to and from our customers. Losing a PC for one hour can mean losing thousands of dollars of revenue. I’d buy an insurance policy against PC downtime—the productivity gains are that important.”

For any manufacturer, supply chain information is the lifeblood of their business. The advanced remote manageability of Intel vPro technology-based PCs let you spot many problems before they cause downtime and remediate more hardware and OS problems remotely. Hardware repairs can be accelerated by up to 50% and OS repairs can be accelerated by up to 75%.

Frank Clark, CEO of circuit board equipment manufacturer Lewis and Clark says, “We’ve got people and PCs all over the planet working in an environment where speed is critical, access to data is critical, and security is critical. With [our IT services provider] managing our vPro-based PCs, we don’t have to sit on the phone for four hours while they fix something.”

Finally, being competitive in a retail business requires IT tools that are reliable and flexible. Using PCs based on Intel vPro technology (in conjunction with your existing management console) allows you to comprehensively monitor and manage your customers IT infrastructure remotely, thus reducing costly service visits.

Mark Sandstrum, General Manager at Sickles Market understands this. He says, “Keeping our PCs and network up and running facilitates transactions, the flow of customers, and revenue. To make sure our IT is capable, [our IT services provider] brings us new solutions, like Intel vPro technology, that increase our ability to do business.”

Eric Townsend is Director of MSP and SMB Marketing for Intel Corp. You can contact Eric at [email protected]. Monthly guest blog posts like this one are part of MSPmentor's annual platinum sponsorship. Read all of Townsend's guest blogs here.